Manifesto for the Humanities

After a remarkable career in higher education, Sidonie Smith offers Manifesto for the Humanities as a reflective contribution to the current academic conversation over the place of the Humanities in the 21st century. Her focus is on doctoral education and opportunities she sees for its reform.

Grounding this manifesto in background factors contributing to current “crises” in the humanities, Smith advocates for a 21st century doctoral education responsive to the changing ecology of humanistic scholarship and teaching. She elaborates a more expansive conceptualization of coursework and dissertation, a more robust, engaged public humanities, and a more diverse, collaborative, and networked sociality.

“Smith’s analysis of the future of doctoral education in the humanities is essential reading for students, faculty, and administrators alike. It provides a comprehensive assessment of the economic challenges the humanities face while surveying new and exciting opportunities offered by the networking of scholarly exchange. A deeply engaging handbook for negotiating the future it maps out.”

—Paul Jay, Loyola University, Chicago

“Manifesto for the Humanities is an inspiring book, bracing, at times exhilarating, imparting not only the bedrock conviction that the way our universities now undertake doctoral education in the humanities must be changed for many reasons—‘educational justice’ being one of the most important—but also that doctoral education actually can be changed. This book offers ways to do so—some of the suggestions are preeminently practical—and gives us the energy to make it happen. Smith engenders an exciting sense of possibility: the times, they are good enough. I believe her.”

—Kathleen Woodward, University of Washington